She couldn't bring him back, but she could hold him in her memory. His face, his smile, his arm resting on her shoulders as they sat reading. She closed her eyes and for a moment she thought she felt him sitting next to her. She thought she might lean over and rest her head against his shoulder.
She buried her face in her hands and wept.
The door swished open, and Repentance wiped her face and looked up.
The king hobbled in, leaning on Provocation's arm.
Behind them came a girl with a tray. She poured hot wine into a cup and handed it to Repentance.
"Come here, child," the king said to Repentance. "Let Provocation see to your burns."
She touched her cheek and then looked at her blistered fingers and winced, feeling the burns for the first time. She pushed herself off the floor and sat on a settee across from the king.
Giving the king a hard look, she said, "I never tried to kill you. That slave and I were coming to tell you that the Prince was trying to kill you."
"I found that out. After you ran away with your young man—it was the farmer that helped you, wasn't it? Sober?"
Her young man. Oh, holy Providence. Why give me the young man, only to snatch him away so quickly?
"After you ran away with your young man, the prince came to tell me of his plans for hunting you down. I told him to leave you. I told him ... " he sighed. "I told him I had no heart to see my own kin swinging on the frame." He covered his face with his hands. "What a fool I was. Malficc was surprised that I'd seen your birthmark. I told him of course I had. Why did he think I took you away from him? I'd seen the birthmark on the first day I met you."
He paused to take a swig from his medicine flask. "Malficc thought I was saying I was your father. That night he came into my room and knocked me over the head. I woke up in the dungeon."
Provocation, slathering a cool balm on Repentance's cheek, broke in. "I blame myself. I should have known. But why would he lock you up? Even if you did think Repentance was your daughter, you still thought she was an assassin. We all did."
"Because I was going to let her go, and she was a threat to him. As long as she lived he couldn't be sure she wouldn't come take the throne from him someday. Or so he thought."
"So his plan was to keep you locked up until you died?" Repentance asked. "And tell everyone you were away on business?" That seemed like a foolish plan.
"His original plan was to have the slave kill me, and have you for a concubine. With me dead, even if you thought your birthmark meant you were my daughter, you'd not be able to prove it. When you spoiled that plan, by coming with the assassin to warn me, he decided to hand you over to the swingman and let me live. For a while, anyway. When I told him to let you go, he had to change his plan again. He put me in prison and went after you. Once he found you, he was going to kill me and claim you got loose and succeeded in assassinating me. I would be dead, you would go to the swingman, and he would ascend to the throne."
The king rubbed his forehead as if it ached and then added in a whisper, "He took great joy in the dungeon, telling me exactly how he was going to do it all."
"He told us you'd left early in the morning to go to Hot Springs," Provocation said. "I wouldn't have taken his word for it. You never left before without waking me. But the footman told me he'd put you in the coach himself."
"The footman will pay for his misplaced loyalty," the king said. "As will all the of Lord Malficc's friends."
"And the troopers," Repentance said. "There was one in the barn. He threatened to kill Consecration's children if he didn't assassinate you."
The king sighed. "We'll sort it all out. Everyone who played a part in this scheme will be punished appropriately. I promise you that."
"Why didn't you tell the prince I wasn't your daughter?" Repentance asked.
"I did. Not that I expected it to do me any good. He had sent an assassin after me and then he'd imprisoned me. He couldn't let me live. But I thought he might let you live if he knew you weren't my daughter. He didn't believe me, though. He thought it was a ploy to spare your life. Besides, by then he hated you for besting him and he was determined to hunt you down and kill you, along with your entire village."
There was a knock on the door and Generosity came in. "The doctor says Tigen has lost much blood. If he's still alive in the morning, we should have every hope he'll live, but he cannot say if Tigen is strong enough to make it through the night."
Repentance said a quick prayer. Not Tigen, too.
The king nodded at Generosity. "Thank you."
She stood there still.
"Something else?" the king asked.
"One of Repentance's friends from the village came to the festival tonight. I thought she might be wanted." She hesitated. "Shall we wait?"
"Bring her in, Generosity. Friends are helpful in times like these."
Comfort pushed past Generosity, bobbed her head at the king, and threw herself into her sister's arms.
Repentance hugged Comfort, weeping, and shushing and petting her all at once. Comfort was safe.
There was that to be thankful for.
Comfort held on to her and cried with her, as they followed Generosity to the queen's chamber.
Repentance crawled into bed beside her sister, utterly exhausted and numb, and sobbed into her pillow while Comfort rubbed her back.
She finally drifted to sleep.
The next thing she knew, Generosity was waking her and asking if she felt well enough to eat in the kitchen. A certain stable boy, she said, Shamed, by name, had been asking after them and all the servants wanted to see Repentance again.
"Do they not know that Sober is dead?" Repentance asked. "How can they eat?"
"I'll come with you, Generosity." Comfort crawled out of bed. "Give me a moment to wash and dress." She tucked the blanket around Repentance's shoulders. "You stay here and sleep. I'll bring you back some coffee." She ducked into the bathing room.
Repentance looked at Generosity. "Is ... " she was afraid to ask. "Is Tigen alive?"
Generosity's flashed a wide smile. "It'll take more than a bonk on the head to put that young beast down, and that's giving it true."
"Where is he?"
"He's in his quarters. His mother is with him."
"And his brothers, no doubt." Repentance shivered. And then pity washed over her. The Prince's children would suffer when they learned of their father's betrayal. Sober had been right. Everyone dies. It was better, then, to die well. At least Repentance could hold on to the comfort of knowing that the man she lost had died bravely and with honor. He wasn't wearing the coward's cloak before Providence.
He had chosen to die with honor, and she had to choose to live with honor. So she had better start living. Comfort and Generosity left, and Repentance sighed, and forced herself out of bed and into the bathing room. When she was dressed, she still felt that she couldn't face anyone. She wandered out of the palace by the front door, circled around to Misty Lake, and sat on the bench at the dock, the foggy gloom fitting her mood.
It also brought her close to Sober. He was in the lake somewhere. Under the palace. His body was, anyway. His life spark was safe with Providence. She was sure of that. Providence would never turn his back on his faithful friend Sober Marsh.
"Ah, here you are." The king stood at the bottom of the steps. "May I sit with you a moment?"
She scooted over.
He hobbled up the stairs, leaning on a cane. "I'm sorry to interrupt your solitude. I saw you go by my library window and I wanted to talk to you privately." His face was bruised and he looked thinner than when she'd last seen him.
She nodded, waiting silently.
He folded and unfolded his hands a couple of times. Then he cleared his throat and wiggled on the bench. Finally, he said, "I find myself wondering why you saved me ... I didn't sleep last night, going over it in my mind. I sentenced you to the swing frame. I was keeping you as a slave. You had every reason to hate me. The young farmer
, on the other hand, you loved. Am I correct in that?"
She nodded.
"So you made an incredible sacrifice. Why did you save me and let him ... ?"
She sighed. "I could have saved Sober. We could have clubbed the prince over the head and escaped." She looked at the king. "But you would have died, and the prince would have ascended to the throne. It never occurred to me that we could roll him into the lake. It all happened so fast. But even if we had murdered him, the young Lord Gaylor would have taken the throne. Either way, the village of Hot Springs would have been destroyed."
"So you sacrificed the one you loved to save your village?"
She gave a little joyless laugh. "I killed one that loved me, to save many that have, for all my life, called me cursed."
The king cocked his head. "I don't understand."
She shook her head. "It's not important. Have you heard of Harding and Hamchet Banniss?"
The king nodded. "Very famous brothers."
"I sacrificed Sober, because he wanted to die like Harding, not Hamchet."
The king nodded. "I see."
"I was about to open his door when he told me you were in another cell. He made me go save you."
"Can you forgive me? Will you ever forgive me for not believing you?"
She reached over and gave one of his hands a squeeze. "I was not trustworthy. I don't blame you for not believing me." She started to cry. "I'm more to blame than anyone. If I'd buttoned him in the beginning none of this would have happened."
"But if you had buttoned the farmer in the beginning, I'd have never met you. And I'd be the poorer for it."
She wiped her eyes and gave him a sideways look.
He chuckled. "Your face. Always your expression gives you away. Yes, Repentance, I mean it when I say I am richer for having known you." He put one arm around her shoulder. "I want to tell you the stories of two lowborn women. A long time ago an overlord king buttoned a lowborn woman. That woman was not faithful. She defiled the button bed. So the king, in a fit of rage, cut off her head, killed everyone in her village, and took the rest of the lowborns as slaves."
Repentance sniffed. "I never understood why I had to pay the price for something that happened so long ago and had nothing to do with me."
"The ways of Providence are hard to understand," the king said. "Why did he give the overlords the strength to enslave the lowborns? And why now, after so long …? Yesterday a lowborn woman made a great sacrifice to save the life of an overlord king. That king, in a fit of gratitude that matched his predecessor's fit of rage, decided that all slaves in the kingdom would go free."
Repentance pulled away to look at his face. Was he having a joke on her?
He nodded. "I may be assassinated for it. The rich overlord nobility will hate me. And the kingdom will go through some hard times as the bead flow is interrupted and readjusts. I'm well aware of these things. But what is a man to do? I have always prided myself on being a fair-minded man and one who pays his debts."
She threw her arms around him and kissed his wrinkled old cheek. Then her smile faded. She wished Sober could have known what his sacrifice would bring about.
A sob escaped her. "Have you gotten the ... bodies from the lake, yet?"
He nodded. "My men went down several hours ago."
"I'd like his button scarf, please. Did you recover it?"
The king smiled and patted her knee. "You shall have that button scarf, Repentance. Come with me."
She hesitated. She didn't want to see Sober's body again. She'd been trying to wipe the memory of his frozen corpse and misshapen face from her mind. She wanted to remember him the way he looked at Lord Carrull's house.
"Come, Repentance," the king said. "You'll catch cold sitting out here. We'll have a cup of hot wine and get the scarf."
She didn't feel like drinking hot wine with anyone. "I'm afraid I won't be very good company."
"I won't make you talk to me," he answered, holding out his hand to her. "But ... I do know someone who would like to talk to you. He's injured and I know a visit from you would cheer his heart and speed his recovery."
Tigen. She really wanted to see him. But—"I don't want to see his brothers."
"I'll make sure no one bothers you."
Together they walked slowly back into the palace.
Once inside the king asked, "So will it be the patient first, or the hot wine?"
"I want to see Tigen," she said.
He led her to a room on the first floor. "When you are done, come find me in my small library, and we'll see to that wine."
She opened the door and slid in quietly in case the boy was asleep.
The chamber was softly lit with mooncloth.
She looked at the bed and gasped. Whoever was in the bed was much bigger than Tigen.
Hearing the gasp, he turned his head.
"Sober!"
Gladness comes after the battle,
and the old wounds and the myriad scars
make the victory all the sweeter.
~Lawful Atwood XV, in the year of emancipation
Chapter 39
He smiled.
She stared, dumbstruck.
His head was bound in white bandaging, stained red at the ear, and his face was swollen and bruised.
He was still the handsomest man she'd ever seen.
"But I saw you. You were frozen. I saw the floor gaping open." Tears sprang to her eyes as she stepped to the bed and picked up one of his hands, needing to touch him to see if he was real.
"I was pretty weak-minded. But after I told you to open the king's door, it occurred to me that I could take my trousers off, dip the ends of the legs in the lake and freeze them, like a sling, across one corner of my cell."
She swiped at the tears on her cheeks. He was so smart. "It makes one wonder what amazing things you might come up with when you aren't half-dead."
"I had to move quickly. The floor was sliding by the time I got the pants frozen in place. I barely made it, and I managed to burn my skin pretty thoroughly in the process."
She gently touched his bandaged arms with her own blistered fingers. "Who was in the water, then? I saw someone," she shivered, "—a dead someone—with your button scarf."
"No, no, no. Don't cry." He pulled her fingers to his mouth and kissed them. "That wasn't me. That was the Prince's assassin—Consecration. I had climbed into the sling seat I'd made with the pants, just in time. The floor slid all the way into the wall, and all that was under me was lake. My back was burning, and I was trying to wrap my lava-cloth blanket around me so I could lean against the wall for a little stability. I was wobbling all over in the sling, trying not to fall, and my scarf slipped off."
Repentance sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. "I can't believe you were saved by such a flimsy sling. But why didn't you call to me? I looked in the window."
"I must have lost consciousness. I was dizzy. My leg wasn't splinted, and I was in a lot of pain. I remember getting the lava cloth wrapped around me and my scarf falling, but I remember nothing from that point until I woke up to dead silence a few hours ago." He shuddered. "If I never feel that way again, I'll be happy. I was still hanging in my cell, so I assumed you had not been successful in freeing the king. I thought you must be dead. When the king's troopers finally came and told me—" He broke off, his words catching in his throat.
She leaned against his chest and he kissed the top of her head with its short, short hair. "When the King's men went down this morning to retrieve our bodies, they found that the prince was done with his, but I was still using mine. They found the assassin's body, too. I'm sorry for the old guy. He was kindly holding onto my button scarf for me.
"Oh, the button scarf." He rolled to one side and came back with the scarf in his hand. "Repentance Atwater, will you finally take my button scarf?"
Two weeks later, Repentance sat in her silk buttoning blouse, facing the crowd in the ballroom. On the mountain they didn't have one Button Day a year�
��people buttoned whenever they wanted to. She smiled. Sober had barely been willing to wait long enough for them to gather their families.
His mother was in the front again, this time smiling.
The servants were a few rows back—Cook, crying; Generosity, beaming; Shamed ... sitting awfully close to Comfort!
Lord Carrull sat with his arm around Mistress Merricc—both looking quite pleased.
Her mother and father were up front with the little boys. Mother was humming happily, no doubt. She'd had no hair to braid that morning since both of her daughters were nearly bald, but she had sewn Repentance's three gray buttons onto her silk blouse. And she'd petted Repentance's head and told her how handsome and kind her overlord father had been and how good her lowborn father was and how much he loved her even though he'd always known she was not his own daughter by blood.
Repentance smiled at her father. He sat up even straighter and thrust his chest out a little farther.
Skoch sat on the other side of her father. When he'd heard that the king was freeing the slaves, he'd smiled and said, "There you are m-m-my Lady. Hot Springs, with its gift of dragon breath, has melted the icy towers of Harthill."
And he was right.
He looked friendless as he sat waiting for the ceremony to begin and Repentance reminded herself that she needed to introduce him to her brothers. His young students had left with their mother to stay with her parents in Norbank. All except Tigen. He wanted to stay with the king, and the king wanted him to stay. His mother had put up no fight. Repentance was torn about that. She was happy that Tigen would remain at the palace but so sad that he had such parents. How could they care so little? How could mothers give up their little boys without a fight?
Tigen seemed to have no mixed emotions in the matter. He sat in front of Skoch, a look of pure joy on his face. He'd been a little jealous when Repentance had told him she meant to button Sober. He'd thought she might wait for him to grow up. She explained that she couldn't button him because, though she loved him, she knew Providence had much more important work for him. She was sure there were other ladies in the kingdom in need of saving, and Tigen, being so brave and so good, was just the boy for the job. He wouldn't be ready to settle down with a button mate for a long while yet, she figured. It was a sacrifice, but she was willing to let him go for the good of the kingdom. She told Tigen all of that, and then she gave him a serving of fruit fluff filling, and by the time he was done licking his bowl he'd accepted the idea of her buttoning Sober. If it couldn't be him, Sober was the next best choice, after all.
The Button Girl Page 32